Professional archaeologists work for universities, colleges,
museums, the federal government, state governments, in private
companies, and as consultants. They teach, conduct field
investigations, analyze artifacts and sites, and publish the
results of their research. The minimal educational requirement to
work as a field archaeologist is a B.A. or B.S. degree with a
major in anthropology or archaeology and previous field
experience (usually obtained by spending a summer in an
archaeological field school or participating as a volunteer, see
question 5). While this is sufficient to work on an
archaeological field crew, it is not sufficient to move into
supervisory roles. Supervisory positions require a graduate
degree, either an M.A./M.S. or a Ph.D.

Academic Positions. Academic
institutions in
the U.S. can be broadly divided into three groups: 1)
universities (with graduate programs); 2) colleges (undergraduate
programs leading to B.A./B.S. degrees); and 3) community colleges
(two year programs leading to Associates degrees). A Ph.D. is
required for faculty positions at colleges and universities. An
M.A./M.S. is required for community college positions. Faculty
teaching loads vary among these three groups. University faculty
teach graduate courses, upper level undergraduate courses (for
anthropology or archaeology majors), and introductory level
courses. College faculty teach upper level undergraduate courses
and introductory level courses. Community college faculty teach
introductory level courses (and sometimes a few upper level
courses). Requirements to obtain research funds and publish
research results are highest in universities and lower in
community colleges. Laboratory facilities are greater in
universities than in community colleges. Most faculty positions
are nine month appointments. During the summer, academic
archaeologists conduct field research funded by grants or
contracts, teach summer school, teach summer field schools, or
work as private consultants. Research funds come from the
archaeologist's school, from federal agencies such as the
National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the
Humanities, and from private foundations such as the National
Geographic Society, Wenner- Gren, Earthwatch, and others. Within
colleges and universities archaeologists are found in departments
of anthropology, archaeology, art history, architecture,
classics, history, and theology.

Museum Positions. Museums may be
connected
with a university or independent. Museum curators conduct
research, publish the results, give public presentations, prepare
displays, and conserve the museum collections. Museum positions
require a graduate degree (M.A./M.S. or Ph.D.). Museum positions
are usually full-year appointments.

State and Federal Government Positions.
Many
archaeologists work for the federal government. The U.S. Forest
Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have about 800 archaeologists
among them. Many archaeologists also work for state government
agencies. Every state has a State Historic Preservation Office
with one or more archaeologists on staff. In addition, other
archaeologists work in state parks departments, highway
departments, and water resource departments. Some cities also
hire archaeologists to handle local ordinances protecting
archaeological sites. Federal and state laws that protect the
environment include protection for important archaeological
sites. As a result the government is involved in managing
archaeological sites on federal and state lands (parks, forests,
etc). Construction projects often require archaeological surveys
to locate prehistoric or historic sites and the excavation of
some sites before construction can begin. Federal and state
archaeologists are involved in making these decisions and
supervising the archaeologists who perform the work. This kind of
archaeology is called cultural resources management (CRM). Most
government positions require an M.A. degree.

Private sector archaeologists.
Archaeologists
also work for firms that conduct the CRM investigations required
by law. They may work for laboratories or centers within colleges
and universities, for engineering and environmental companies,
for companies specializing in archaeological investigations, or
as private consultants. Positions in CRM work require an M.A. to
have a supervisory role. Private sector archaeologists conduct
archaeological surveys to locate prehistoric and historic sites.
They also excavate significant sites prior to their destruction
by construction activities. Private sector archaeologists work in
the field, in the laboratory analyzing the results of their field
investigations, in the office writing reports on those
investigations and preparing proposals to conduct additional
work. These organizations also hire field archaeologists as
temporary staff to assist with the field investigations. Field
positions usually require a B.A. degree and previous field
experience in an archaeological field school.

Education and training requirements are different for
different kinds of archaeology. In the U.S. anthropology
departments include archaeology as one of four subdisciplines
(the others are physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, and
linguistic anthropology). During the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, anthropology programs in the U.S. were
established to study American Indian societies, languages, and
ruins. As a result, there are few separate archaeology
departments. Interdisciplinary programs that combine archaeology
with various other fields of study are more common. Students who
wish to study ancient or classical civilizations (including the
Near East, Egypt, early civilizations of the Mediterranean,
classical Greece and Rome, and the early civilizations of India,
China, and southeast Asia) are more likely to pursue their
studies in interdisciplinary programs that include courses in
art, architecture, classics, history, ancient and modern
languages, and theology. Students who wish to study the
historical periods (roughly from the fall of Rome to the present)
combine history (including archival and oral history research)
with courses in historical and vernacular architecture, material
culture and folklore, and archaeology.

At the undergraduate level, there is little specialization. A
major in anthropology requires courses in all of the
subdisciplines. For students interested in ancient and classical
civilizations, the particular undergraduate major is not
important, but it is advantageous to begin learning several
ancient and modern languages (e.g. Greek, Latin, German, French).
Historical archaeologists usually major in anthropology or
history. An undergraduate degree (B.A./B.S.) is sufficient to
work as a field archaeologist in the U.S. and to perform basic
laboratory studies. Previous experience through participation in
an archaeological field school or as a volunteer is often
required. Summer archaeological field schools provide the best
way to learn how to properly excavate and record archaeological
sites and to find out if archaeology is really for you. Job
opportunities outside the U.S. are very limited, but volunteers
with field experience should be welcome almost anywhere.

There are two levels of graduate training in archaeology. The
first is an M.A. or M.S. degree which takes about 1-2 years of
course work beyond the B.A./B.S. degree and a written thesis
which presents the results of original research by the student.
Some programs offer a non-thesis M.A. degree. Unless you are
planning to work immediately on a Ph.D. degree, the preparation
of a thesis is an important part of the educational process. An
M.A./M.S. would be enough to direct field crews and is sufficient
for many government positions in archaeology. It is also
sufficient to work in the private sector, to teach in a community
college, and to work for some museums. An M.A./M.S. with a thesis
and a year of field and laboratory experience is the minimum for
certification by the Society of Professional Archeologists. Most
foreign governments will issue excavation permits only to
archaeologists with a Ph.D. degree. This means that opportunities
to direct field projects outside the U.S. are limited to those
with a doctoral degree.

The second graduate degree is the Ph.D., which is required to
teach in a college or university or hold a museum curatorship.
The Ph.D. degree requires 2-3 years of courses beyond the M.A.
and the successful preparation and oral defense of a dissertation
containing original research in your chosen specialization within
the field of archaeology. Some graduate programs offer
streamlined tracks for students with a B.A. degree so that they
work directly toward a Ph.D. while others require an M.A. degree
first.

The American Anthropological Association publishes annually
the "AAA Guide 2007-2008." It lists most of the
graduate and undergraduate anthropology programs in the U.S. and
Canada. Included in the listings are the names and research
interests of all faculty in the department. The guide is
published annually and can be purchased from the American
Anthropological Association, AAA Book Orders, 4350 North
Fairfax Drive, Suite 640, Arlington, VA 22203-1620. You should be able
to
find a copy at any college or university library. The AAA guide
coverage is less complete for interdisciplinary programs
combining art, architecture, classics, language, and history to
study ancient and classical civilizations or historical
archaeology. Three other guides will be useful in locating these
programs.The "Guide to Graduate Programs in Historical
and Underwater Archaeology" is available from the Society
for Historical
Archaeology. Williams College has a useful listing of U.
S. Graduate Programs in Classics. The website GradSchools.com
lists programs in many subject fields including anthropology,
archaeology, and classics. Washington University in St Louis has an Anthropology
Dept Website Directory that makes it easy to look at
different programs.

Bass, George, editor. 1988. Ships and Shipwrecks of
the
Americas: A History Based on Underwater Archaeology. Thames
& Hudson. ISBN 050027892X. Nautical archaeology in the
Americas.

Biers, William R. 1996. The Archaeology of Greece:
An
Introduction. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801482801.
>From prehistory, through the Minoan civilization and the the
classical Greek city states to the Roman period in Greece.

Coe, Michael D. 1994. Mexico:
From the Olmecs
to the Aztecs. Thames & Hudson. ISBN
0500277222.
The rise of civilization in Mexico.

Daniel, Glyn. 1981. A Short History of Archaeology.
Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500021015. A historical perspective on
the great discoveries in archaeology and the archaeologists who
made them.

Deetz, James. 1996. In Small Things Forgotten: The
Archaeology of Early American Life. Anchor Books. ISBN
0385483996. How the archaeological record provides information
about colonial America not found in written records.

Deetz, James. 1995. Flowerdew Hundred: The
Archaeology of
a Virgina Plantation, 1619-1864. Univ. Press of Virginia.
ISBN 0813916399. Archaeological and archival explorations
at a seventeenth century British colony.

Fagan, Brian, ed.. 1997. Eyewitness to
Discovery:
First-Person Accounts of More than Fifty of the World's Greatest
Archaeological Discoveries. Oxford Univ. Press.
ISBN
0195081412. Great archaeological discoveries described by
the discoverers themselves.

Fagan, Brian. 1987. The Great Journey: The Peopling
of
Ancient America. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500275157.
Describes the migration of hunting and gathering societies from
northeastern Asia to the Americas over 10,000 years ago.

Johanson, Donald & James Shreeve. 1989. Lucy's
Child:
The Discovery of a Human Ancestor. Avon. ISBN 0380712342.
Further discoveries of fossil ancestors by Johanson and their
importance for understanding human evolution.

Kemp, Barry. 1989. Ancient Egypt: The Anatomy of a
Civilization. Routledge. ISBN 0415063469. A
summary of
the ancient Egyptians.

Kennedy, Roger. 1994. Hidden
Cities: The
Discovery and Loss of Ancient North American Civilization.
Penguin. ISBN 0140255273. A historical
account
of moundbuilder archaeology in the U.S. during the eighteenth
century.

Noel Hume, Ivor. 1994. Here Lies
Virginia: An
Archaeologist's View of Colonial Life and History.
University Press of Virginia. ISBN 0813915287.

Noel Hume, Ivor. 1982. Martin's Hundred: The
Discovery of
a Lost Colonial Virginia Settlement. Dell Publishing Co.,
Inc. ISBN 0385292813. The discovery and excavation of a British
settlement founded in Virginia in 1618.

Schick, Kathy D. and Nicholas Toth. 1993. Making
Silent
Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn of Technology.
Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0671693719. A look at the earliest
stone tools, how they were made and what they were used for.

Schele, Linda and David Freidel. 1990. A
Forest of
Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya.
Quill.
ISBN 0688112048. A history of the Maya based on recent
translations of Mayan writing.

Stringer, Christopher and Clive Gamble. 1993.
In
Search of the Neanderthals. Thames &
Hudson.
ISBN 0500278075. Everything you need to know about
neandethals and the current controversy concerning their place in
human evolution.

Patterson, Thomas C. 1994. The Theory and Practice
of
Archaeology: A Workbook Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-014846-6. A
series of exercises to illustrate how archaeologists interpret
the past.

Price, T. Douglas and Gitte Gebauer. 1996. Adventures
in
Fugawiland: A Computer Simulation in Archaeology. Mayfield.
ISBN 1559347627. An exercise book and computer
simulation of prehistoric sites in the midwestern U.S.

Thomas, David H. 1991. Archaeology: Down to Earth.
Harcourt Brace. ISBN 0030475848. A brief description of the
basics of archaeological interpretation.

Webster, David L., Susan T. Evans, William T. Sanders. 1993. Out
of the Past. An Introduction to Archaeology Mayfield
Publishing Co. ISBN 155934153X. A thorough introductory text
covering the basic principles of archaeological research
illustrated with examples from around the world.

Check with your state archaeological society. They may have an
annual field school. Visit Passport
in Time, a program in which
volunteers work with archaeologists in the National Forest
Service on a variety of projects. The Archaeological Institute of
America publishes an annual Archaeological
Fieldwork
Opportunities Bulletin.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National
Park Service have produced several lesson plans
called, Teaching
with
Historic Places. Also the Archaeological Institute
of America has teaching resources at Archaeology
in the Classroom. The National Museum of Natural History
produces a free
newsletter for teachers called Anthro
Notes.

To stay up to date on the latest archaeological discoveries,
visit Anthropology
in the News a site that links you to current news stories
concerning anthropology and archaeology
(http://www.tamu.edu/anthropology/news.html).

Copyright � 1997 by David L. Carlson. This document
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